History:The long and illustrious career of the Queen
Mary began with her maiden voyage on May 27, 1936, as the prize of the Cunard Line. She carried 1, 742 passengers:
a crew of 1,186 men and women; 100 reporters; 6,124 sacks of mail, and during her maiden voyage, the BBC installed a number
of microphones aboard ship to broadcast the event atound the world. The Queen Mary sailed to New York from England in
4 days and 15 hours. During WWII the British government requisitioned the Queen Mary for service, giving her a new coat
of gray paint and converting her to a troop transport. She set sail for Australia in 1940, and in May, boarded 5,000
Australian soliders. During her war years, she transported over 800,000 troops as well as passengers and refugees. The
Queen Mary was a "marked" ship by Adolf Hitler who offered $250,000, as well as instant hero status, to any U-Boat cammander
who could sink her. After being converted back to passenger service, she began her true post war service on July 31,
1947. After 1,001 transatlantic crossings; 3 million miles at sea: transporting over 2 million passengers including
800,000 troops during WWII; and surviving being marked by Hitler, the Queen Mary arrived in Long Beach on December 9, 1967,
after her final transatlantic voyage. At exactly 12:07 PM, John Treasure Jones, the Queen Mary's last captain, announced
the end of one career for the Queen of the Sea, and ushered in another - as a tourist attraction.

The stories of strange phenomena aboard the Queen Mary began surfacing immediately after the ship docked
in 1967. Workers and security personnel began telling tales of ghosts roaming the decks of the ship. Initally
the early owners of the Queen Mary were reluctant to admit the fact that " Strange and unexplainable things" were happening
aboard the ship, or to discuss the subject of ghosts. Fearing that rumors of ghosts would drive away potential tourists, the
subject was hushed. Eventually, however, the owners began to realize that ghosts were not so bad for publicity after
all. People were willing to pay to tour the corridors after midnight in search of the unexplained.

- Information from " The Haunted Queen Mary," Written by Robert James Wlodarski and Anne Powell Wlodarski.